Death is Optional
by MommaMandee
Summary: "My name is Rachel, and why won't these people just let me die?" - Rachel reflects on her life as the powers that be continue to toy with her, even in death. A short one-shot... that could possibly become about the origins of Crayak? ... And maybe the future of Rachel? If you guys like it. Who knows?


**Author's** **Note:** My first fanfiction, a one-shot that blossomed from my desperate need for Rachel to _please not be dead! _She was my favorite character. I remember being depressed for, like, a week, after reading the last book. So, of course, I will jump on the bandwagon and grasp at any remotely possible way to bring her back. Will probably remain a one-shot, unless you people like it. Enjoy. c:

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My name is Rachel. Yeah, that Rachel. Think about it; you probably know me, or at least someone like me. Tall, blond hair, great body, great smile, good grades. The total package, right? The girl every guy dreams about dating. The girl every other girl wishes they could be.

That used to be me. Me before the war.

I was thirteen when I met my first alien. I could have saved the government millions of dollars in deep space research. All you frizzy haired, crooked nosed scientists who spent the last two decades of your lives listening to washers run through the spin cycle, or deciphering the fuzzy static of a cell phone call made from over fifty miles away, hoping to find just the slightest hint of life somewhere, _anywhere_, out there... Well, you wasted your time. You should have asked me. I could have told you all about aliens.

I could have told you about the Yeerks, a race of parasitic slugs that burrow their way through your ear canal and into your brain, flatten themselves into the tiny gray nooks and crannies, and control your every move. They have access to your every thought, your every whim, and they can read your memories as easily as a child reads a picture book. They act just like you, and they can be anyone. Your mom, your brother, your teacher... Anyone's brain can host a Yeerk. Anyone can be an enemy. A Controller.

I could have told you about Elfangor, the injured Andalite war-prince who crashed landed in the middle of the construction site, right in front of five wet-your-pants terrified teenagers - teenagers who definitely took the wrong way home. My cousin, Jake, was there. So was his best friend, Marco, and my best friend, Cassie. Then there was Jake's dirty blond tag-along, Tobias. And me.

I could have told you about the battle Elfangor fought, and lost, to defend our planet against the silent invasion of the Yeerks. I might have even mentioned the _Escafil device_, the pretty little blue cube we all touched, so Elfangor could bestow upon us the power to morph. Yes, _morph_. Kinda like a werewolf, except not as pretty. Any animal we could touch and acquire, we could become. So we could continue the fight, after Elfangor was gone, and until his people returned.

But you already know all this, don't you?

Yeah, you guessed it. If you've paid any attention at all to the news in the past, oh, five years or so, you know all about the war against the Yeerks, about the Animorphs, about me. I'm Rachel Berenson. The Forgotten Animorph. The dead girl.

Marco always called me Xena. Drode called me _Rachel of the dark heart..._ That's what I became. Dark-hearted Rachel, the ruthless, bloodthirsty warrior woman. It's almost as if I was made for the war. As if my fate was twisted, ever so slightly... Just enough to make me part of the struggle that would lead to my becoming both the very best and very worst of myself.

I didn't love everything about the war. I had nightmares until the day I died. Terrible nightmares that woke me up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, screaming with inhuman agony. I lost the most sleep over David. I can still feel the pain of chewing through my own tail during our rodent throw-down, me against him, in the dark maze of underground pipes. David could not be trusted. He could not have the _Escafil device_. I had to win, at any cost, and I did. I did what I did best, what Jake counted on me to do. I attacked.

_I was smarter than any of you!_

I waited for him to be trapped in rat morph. Two unforgettable hours of listening to him beg and plead and rage against me. But I let him. And I left him on that God-forsaken island to live out his days dodging birds and eating maggots.

So, no, I didn't love everything about the war. But I loved the challenge. I was one of a group of kids, fighting a battle with impossible odds, against an enemy of immense strength and nearly unlimited resources. Sometimes we lost. Sometimes we won. But no matter the outcome, at the end of every battle, one fact was indisputable.

I was _good_ at it.

_I was the warrior, the goddess, and it was my moment, my own perfection..._

I enjoyed it more than the others. I enjoyed the war.

Until it killed me.

As I was dying, the Ellimist came to me. He told me the story of Toomin the Ketran, the brilliant loser who became the Ellimist, a nearly-omnipotent and benevolent being, locked in a seemingly eternal struggle with Crayak, the Big Red Eye, the universal destroyer. I almost felt bad for him. He was just as trapped and nearly as helpless as I was. He was held prisoner by the rules of his game with Crayak; he couldn't save me. I had been his piece in the war for so long, I suppose he felt he owed me some explanation. Or maybe he wanted to ease my transition into the afterlife, who knows? Don't ask me to explain the nearly-omnipotent being, even though I probably know as much about him as anyone, now.

_You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered._

"Ah... Okay then. Okay, then... "

I wondered if this was the only fitting end for me. Jake always worried about what I would do after the war. Could I forget the thrill of battle, the warm rush of adrenaline as another enemy fell, defeated, beneath my bloody claws? Could I turn back into the old Rachel? The tall, blond girl concerned with little more than the next big weekend sale at the mall, or her next algebra test? What would the warrior woman do, when there was no more war left to fight?

The Ellimist left me, time started again, and I felt myself begin to fall, felt the small strand of space-time that was me begin to unravel and break into nothingness. I was almost gone, teetering on the fragile edge between life and death, and all I could think was at least Jake wouldn't have to worry. I had done my job, handled the dirty work, and now... I wasn't his problem anymore. I could finally just... rest.

The end was so close, so agonizingly and beautifully close. And yet, I should have known it couldn't be that easy. I was no more than a breath away from death when time came to a screeching halt, _again_, and a familiar, cackling laugh echoed through the recesses of my reeling mind. It seemed the Ellimist wasn't the only one coming to pay his final respects...

_"Ahh, Rachel, Rachel... You always were my favorite Animorph."_

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Please review? Thank you! c:


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